~ Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Get Mish!

Wild French Polls: Spread Between Top Four Candidates Shrinks to 4 Percentage Points

The maximum spread between the top four candidates in the latest French poll is down to a mere four percentage points!

Turnout makes matters even more difficult to assess. Abstain is in a three-way tie for the most votes at 23%. In the second most recent poll, abstain has 35% of the vote and leads Le Pen by 10.5 percentage points.

Given how wildly off base election polls have been this year, it’s safe to use the words “completely unpredictable” heading into the first round of votes on April 23.

On April 4, all 11 candidates squared off in what is best described as a free-for-all. Eurointelligence offered some interesting comments.

There will be no third TV debate ahead of the first round of the French elections. No time and no appetite. The truth is no one wants another surreal scene like the last one. It had all the hallmarks of a reality show rather than a serious political debate. The six small candidates had a field day, and made the big candidates squirm. Candidates promised the sky, and showed no modesty or restraint. And Jean-Luc Mélenchon all of a sudden appeared moderate, and it is no surprise that he got the most attention on social media.

Thanks to the smaller candidates, Le Pen lost her reputation of being the only radical candidate, writes Françoise Fressoz. About Frexit for example. François Asselineau, credited with 0.5% of the votes, promised to trigger Article 50 if elected. Le Pen’s promise to give herself six months to negotiate with Brussels looks lukewarm by comparison. Asselineau called it a bluff and that she would not get France out of the euro.

Macron’s success relies on the idea that he can get into the second round, and that he will then get all the votes from the left and right to avoid Le Pen. But what if this is not the scenario that will emerge from the first round?

Fresh Polls

I held off on posting that waiting for some polls taken entirely after the debate. Let’s take a look.

Six Possibilities

Macron – Le Pen

Macron – Fillon

Macron – Mélenchon

Le Pen – Fillon

Le Pen – Mélenchon

Fillon – Mélenchon

Ignoring the order, those are the final pairing possibilities. #1 is the most likely and #6 the least likely, but I struggle to put a definitive order to the rest of the pairings.

I am not even sure if #1 is much better than a 50-50 shot given abstentions, poll volatility, and the propensity of French voters to vote for someone other than who they really want in an attempt to game the system.

One thing is sure: Distrust of mainstream candidates is high. That benefits Macron, Le Pen, and Mélenchon, perhaps in reverse order.

Interesting Pairings

A Le Pen-Mélenchon pairing would be the EU’s worst nightmare. Both are anti-EU and anti-NATO.

Bloomberg reports “Nothing annoys Melenchon more than being told he shares many positions with Le Pen. While they both reject EU institutions and free trade, and favor closer ties with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, they differ greatly on issues of immigration and policing.”

Bloomberg also notes:

In his campaign program, Melenchon says he’d put in place a 100 billion-euro ($107 billion) stimulus package to help tackle poverty, improve public services and protect the environment. He plans 173 billion euros of extra state expenses that he says will generate 190 billion euros of additional revenue, boost growth by more than 2 percentage points from 2018 and create more than 3 million jobs.

Among his populist measures are a plan to raise France’s minimum wage by 15 percent and lower retirement age to 60 years with full pension. He also plans to add 200,000 units of public housing a year. He expects his program to increase public debt as a share of gross domestic product to 95.8 percent, with a plan to reduce it to 87 percent in 2022.

The comparison to Le Pen may irritate Mélenchon, but that’s not what matters. There are more similarities between those two candidates than other candidates.

What matters is who will those voting for Mélenchon favor if it comes down to Macron-Le Pen or Le Pen-Fillon?

Splintered Left

The Left has splintered into pro-EU and anti-EU factions.

Check out mainstream socialist candidate Hamon. He has a mere 8.5% support. If Hamon were to drop out and support Mélenchon, the latter would likely make it to the final round, possibly against Le Pen.

But Hamon is highly unlikely to support Mélenchon precisely because of that possibility and also because Hamon is pro-EU.

Le Pen’s Chances Far Greater Than Most Think

While it is unclear now if Le Pen (or anyone else) makes it to round two, her chances of winning are far greater than most think.

The known anti-EU vote is Le Pen + Mélenchon + Asselineau. That totals 42.5%. Is there more lurking somewhere else?

And what if the final pairing is Le Pen-Fillon. Will socialists really support Fillon?

I believe they will turn out for Le Pen in spades. Why? Because the odds of Le Pen being able to push through the legislation to take France off the Euro are slim.

Fillon, on the other hand, may be able to force through all kinds of badly needed reforms that the Left despises.

Nightmare Scenarios

For the Left: Le Pen vs. Fillon

For the EU: Le Pen vs. Mélenchon

For the Right: Le Pen vs. Mélenchon

Either Le Pen or Mélenchon as a final winner would be exceptionally distasteful to the EU.

Those are very possible outcomes.

Mélenchon is a social media star like Trump. He also uses video games and holograms. The Financial Times reported Mélenchon was “the first French presidential candidate to do a speech by hologram, enabling him to talk to crowds in Lyon and Paris at the same time.” He has 260,000 You-Tube subscribers.

Instead of just having to worry about Le Pen, the EU can now worry about Mélenchon as well.

Related

About Mish

Post navigation

Disclaimer: The content on this site is provided as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. All site content, including advertisements, shall not be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security or financial instrument, or to participate in any particular trading or investment strategy. The ideas expressed on this site are solely the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the opinions of sponsors or firms affiliated with the author(s). The author may or may not have a position in any company or advertiser referenced above. Any action that you take as a result of information, analysis, or advertisement on this site is ultimately your responsibility. Consult your investment adviser before making any investment decisions.

15 thoughts on “Wild French Polls: Spread Between Top Four Candidates Shrinks to 4 Percentage Points”

A runoff between Melenchon and Le Pen would be truly odd to behold. More likely is that two of the following three make to the second round: Macron, Le Pen, and Fillon.

The polls may not fully capture turnout dynamics and a substantial portion of the electorate have yet to declare there choices so the numbers are still unsettled.

Also, in the French primaries, poll numbers tended to dramatically shift in the final days before the vote (final results often differed from last polls too, due in part to the inability of most polls to properly keep up with late momentum going into vote). Benoit Hamon and Francois Fillon surged in the last days of leading up to the primary votes. Conversely, Alain Juppe and Manuel Valls steadily lost ground at the end.

If Le Pen were to win, NATO would gin up the Operation Gladio machinery and Le Pen would totally morph and of necessity be anti-Putin, kowtow to the EU, and start sounding like Merkel. Change of faces, but business as usual for the French Socialist Workers Paradise. Mélenchon is a doubling down on bad policy, but hard to argue against freebies, earlier and larger pensions, etc. in an election campaign. Fillon is the real radical, for France. Criminal charges against Fillon were designed to keep him from going head to head against Le Pen, and thus pave the way for Macron to gain a runoff spot. Might work. But if the 23% abstain becomes undecided and goes out to vote instead, it could be a wild outcome. But hard to imagine Frexit.

One can add Dupont-Aignans 4,5% to the anti-EU totals.
Dupont-Aignans party has been aligned with UK Independence Party and Mr. Farage in the european parliament.
.
Le Pen + Mélenchon + Asselineau+ Dupont-Aignan is 47%.
.
The problem for Melenchon is that he is blind to the things that stupid immigration policies have been causing to France and french people.
It has been a POLITICAL CHOICE of the french elite to have loose and lax immigration policies for muslims from former colonies to move to France easily and bring their families to live with them even on welfare.
It has been a political choice to let 2nd and 3rd generation french muslim immigrants to marry people from their parents/grand-parents home countries and live with them on welfare in France instead of telling them to marry from the muslims already in france and try to europeanize and westernize the muslims in attitudes and birth rates by stopping the family re-unification madness where backwards thinking people with low education and no-concept of how one should live in Europe are continually brought to France and then incompetent politicians wonder why so many are unemployed and after these parents make lots of kids the same politicians wonder why so many drop out of school, turn to crime and stay unemployed and on welfare and find a wife or a husband and keep making yet another generation of kids who have no chance to succeed because their parents were unable to succeed but still welfare keeps funding them to make more and more kids who they can pass their bitterness on to.
.
The 2nd and 3rd generations of muslim immigrants to France are not doing well (school dropouts, unemployed, on welfare, bitter at France and blaming french racism for their not so successful lives, listening to extremist islams siren songs) and the ghettoes are real and since french make much less babies than the muslims and the french start making babies around 30 year old when muslims start at 20 year old the demographics of France are in a slide where there is no return.
.
Soon over 50% of french kids being born will be muslim.
This will accelerate to over 75% of kids being born being muslim when another 20 years passes and the 50% muslim generation starts having their own families.
.
France will become a muslim majority country unless Le Pen wins this year and completely stops the family re-unification madness that is used to bring wives and husbands from the parents/grand-parents home countries to marry 2nd and 3rd generation french muslims.
Also the welfare system needs to be cut back so that one can make only 1-2 kids on welfare instead of the current system where permanently unemployed welfare cases of whom 99% are muslims keep making 6-8-10 kids per family with these kids having no chance of success because their parents can give them no chances for success when the parents themselves used their kids as their meal ticket and only repeat to their kids their own bitterness against the country of France and the native french people.
.
When it comes to asylum seekers France has been much more stricter than Sweden and Germany and UK.
The reason there are always people in Calais trying to get to UK is that they know that if they seek asylum in France they are most likely to be sent home but if they reach UK they will either be given asylum or be able to hide in the incompetence that is Great Britain’s non-existent internal controls and complete incompetence in deporting people.
.
France’s leftist president Hollande closed France’s border with Italy and stopped asylum seekers coming thru Italy to France in June 2015 when Sweden and Germany led by Lofven and Merkel were still luring people to come with huge acceptance rates and large welfare benefits and Merkel and Lofven demanded that borders must stay open and thereby let Greece push everyone coming towards north which lured more and more people to come when they knew that they could get thru Greece and that Sweden and Germany were mass-granting asylums and NOT even trying to catch liars and that the welfare money was plentiful and on acceptance of the facebook-circulated bogus asylum seeker sob-story they would immediately get a free apartment and right to make family re-unification straight to welfare.
.
Sweden and Germany even rammed through stupid asylum seeker burden sharing with their threats that lured even more people to come because it made clear that borders were open and if borders would close EU would give people rides from Greece and Italy to welfare paying europe which was the goal of the people coming.
.
ALL the drownings that have happened have happened BECAUSE Sweden and Germany have LURED and INVITED these people to come with their stupid political choices that lured these people to come with large acceptance rates even for liars and fakes, huge welfare money and free apartments after acceptance.
.
ALL the rapes, killings and sexual assaults committed by asylum seekers that have happened have happened BECAUSE Sweden and Germany have LURED and INVITED these people to come with their stupid political choices.
.
Every syrian was already SAFE in turkey and all movement beyond that is not motivated by seeking safety it is motivated by the free welfare money and free apartments and 100% acceptance rate and permanent residence promised to syrians by Sweden and Germany in their political incompetence.
.
Every somali, iraqi and afganistani was SAFE in their countries SAFE areas but was lured to come claim asylum in Europe by welfare paying europe’s stupidity in large acceptance rates for even facebook-circulated lies and fairytales and the free welfare money and free apartments andd family re-unifications to welfare that followed acceptance.
.
EVERY somali, iraqi and afganistani should be returned home and told to live in their countries SAFE areas like international treaties allow instead of the current model where acceptance rates are still HUGE for these people despite all being baseless and fake asylum seekers if european countries would just use the possibility internal flight clause in international treaties to reject their asylum claims.
.
EU is partly to blame because stupid EU-directives about asylum processing and about family re-unification and the stupid asylum processing modules originally designed in Sweden that EU made europewide through another bureaucracy called EASO loosened the standards and thereby lured people to come.
.
Every eritrean army deserter should have their asylum claim DENIED and they should be returned to Eritrea on the condition that there is no punishment for army desertion that the eritreans were lured to desert because they learned that instead of serving in eritrean army for 18 months they could get free welfare money and free apartment for the rest of their lives if they just reached welfare paying europe.

Well said Katsaus. What I find amazing is that in not one country does there seem to be a sovereign clause where the decision makers can be held accountable, where incompetence on grounds of national damage can be raised as a direct and imposing challenge to the policy makers. All that exists is vague promises mixed into a hundred other facets of election grandstanding where even if a leader is chosen after the four yearly wait(s) to rearrange the equation there is no guarantee he/she will be able to.

I am not sure if really what we are seeing is a purposeful destruction by European society itself of its own heritage. You could place that as political ideologies, ignorance, revolution of a kind… the more traditionalist of us see the errors that might exist in that, but where and how to start dealing with it all is another question – there are always more immediate crisis and argument at hand ready to push aside someone with their hand in the air waiting to speak his truth.

I cannot recall answering a poll honestly beginning with age, sex, income. French culture is far less honest than USA. Information is power. Never give the aristocrats enough information to game the propaganda. The French election will be a surprise to aristocrats who survived the last revolution.

“There will be no third TV debate ahead of the first round of the French elections. No time and no appetite. The truth is no one wants another surreal scene like the last one. It had all the hallmarks of a reality show rather than a serious political debate.”

That’s what CNN did to the Republican Party primary debates- turn a serious debate into a reality show. Ted Cruz called them out on it.

It was later exposed that the Hillary campaign colluded with the Mainstream media, to get a Pied Piper candidate nominated by the Republican Party, that they would knock down in the general election.

This explains the MSM chorus blaming the Russians as interfering in our election. The MSM is guilty of interfering in our election and is trying to deflect from their own complicity.

Go to FILTERIS polls are fake news The French media the press is biased for Macron and was bought by the same who were against Trump
WAKE UP Marine Le Pen will never be elected
I am still supporting Fillon as he is the closest candidate concerning his policy to the British tories or the american Republican party
France is a sick country/ un pays malade / ill country with billions of public deficits and millions of unemployed citizens that needs reforms ys tax reforms yes labor law reforms less regulations free enterprise not state owned economy
As next president Monsieur François FILLON will implement these reforms supported by a strong majority in parliament Assemblée nationale / House of representatives and Sénat / Senate
Vote Fillon , like Charles De Gaulle he will restore hope faith in the future and pride for millions of French citizens
Macron is a fake candidate or a marketing product delivered by eurocrats look towards Germany / Parisian media establishment same as Washington so called deep state in the us/
anf finally look towards London banks Macron worked as a banker for Rotschild and financial times called him the Mozard of Finance and a great financier
Were the Financial times or the economist papers supporting president Trump at the time before he was elected answer no
These establishment medias support Macron

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email. Note: You'll have to confirm your address after sign-up. Please check your spam folder if you do not receive a confirmation email.